Abbey, Spike and the President were waiting for them at the entrance when the got back. From the looks Spike and the President were throwing each other, they had been too long.
Abbey beamed at them as the walked through the door. The President and Spike seemed more relieved than happy at their arrival.
Spike went immediately to Buffy side and looked her over for any injuries.
"I'm fine," she hissed.
He ignored her, drinking in her presence. She smiled, and rolled her eyes. But she didn't move away.
"You did what you went out to do?" the President asked, aware of the Marines listening.
There were general nods and 'yes, sir's.
"Excellent," he proclaimed. "Then we should all have dinner to celebrate."
Josh, Sam, Toby, Donna and C.J immediate said that they would love to, and that it was an excellent idea.
The Scoobies all looked at them a little weirdly. The President looked at them expectantly.
"We would be honoured," Giles said, remembering his diplomatic training and noticing the look on Toby's face.
"Excellent," the President said again. "You'll be able to tell me all about your adventures. I had to talk to treasury people today."
He noticed the closed look on Leo's face and narrowed his eyes. Leo's shrug said 'we'll talk later,' he nodded at his friend.
"Ah, we aren't really dressed for dinner," Buffy said. She looked down at her own dressed. She hadn't thought about she was wearing before, but it turned out she was in a black dress, which now had a torn skirt, and was covered in dust.
The others were dressed in reasonably good, if casual clothes.
"We'll see if there's anything of Zoe's that you can borrow. I'll have someone tell Rene, and find Charlie. Seven o'clock?"
There was no arguing with the President, least of all on the time of dinner. No on bothered.
The staffers returned to the work they had hoped to ignore until Monday. Abbey lead Buffy to the Residence to find something to wear. The others found their way to the Roosevelt room, the only room they knew and collapsed on to various chairs and let the uncomfortable silence settle over them.
Xander reached out and took Anya's hand. She ran her fingers over his knuckles almost absently. Dawn was looking at Giles like she wanted him to tell her everything was going to be all right. Giles was beyond thinking 'all right' and up to 'still alive.'
Willow leant her against Tara's shoulder and let her girlfriend's hand stroke her hair. Tara murmured sweet nothings in Willow's ear, trying to get to think of anything except how automatic Buffy had seemed.
Spike wanted to eat them all. But for the pain, knocking their heads together seemed like a nice idea. Except the Bit, she was legitimately concerned. Okay, so he had a soul now, but he was Spike-with-a-soul, not William Lancaster, the Bloody awful poet. He was still the pragmatic bastard who had killed two Slayers. It was just that now he understood that there were people who missed them.
He slammed his fist on the table.
"We had to do it," he said. "If you want to feel guilty, feel bad that that Marbury bloke didn't read us all the fine print. But you need to be confident and happy for Buffy's sake. She was happy, and you took that from her, don't make her look after you on top of everything."
He stood up abruptly and left the room. No one even thought to go after him. They looked guiltily at one another.
"We shouldn't have done it," Willow said.
"It was in the book," Giles said, "it had to be done. I think that if we hadn't done it this way, we would have done it on our own and things could have been much worse."
"How?" Willow demanded in a high pitched voice.
"Were you listening to the reading?" Giles asked. "I couldn't process much, but it sounded fairly ominous."
"'The Lover will know hate, true hate'," Dawn repeated softly.
"Yes," Giles said, "And 'the power calls to it a darkness' don't tell me you hadn't considered it, Willow?"
Willow swallowed, but she didn't look away.
"She was supposed to be in hell."
"So, we be careful of assumptions," Xander said. "I like Buffy, Buffy's back, I'm glad."
Dawn cracked a grin at his use of logic, but she was crying inside. Would Buffy want to be with her? Or we she just remind her sister of the fact that she had had a chance to rest? Had she even cared? Or simply done her duty to the end?
Anya nudged Xander.
"Tell them," she whispered. "It's happy news. It'll cheer them up."
"We need to work out about Buffy first," Xander said. "And she deserves to find out with the others," he added. "She needs to hear happy news the most."
Anya nodded, mollified. But she didn't really understand the guilt they were feeling. It was like Xander said, they should just be happy that Buffy was back.
Spike stalked, ignored, through the White House. He met very few people the short path he walked. Despite his leather coat, bleached hair, and general air of menace, he had learnt a few tricks over the previous hundred years.
He came eventually to a curved wall. There was no one inside, so he entered and crossed the room quickly. The patio was shady enough and he stepped out. Figuring it must be easy enough to get to where Buffy was from here he kept walking, fooling the guards with his confidence.
At the end of the patio he came to a door he couldn't walk through. So he sat down to wait. He hoped that Abbey had enough mothering in her, after talking to him, to take Buffy in for a little while. He wondered how things would have been different if he hadn't killed his own mother, twice.